Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Gaddafi (مُعَمَّر القَذَّافِي ‎''Muʿammar al-Qaḏḏāfi'' ) (June 7th, 1942 – October 20th, 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi or Colonel Gaddafi, was Libya's autocratic ruler from 1969, when he seized power in a bloodless military coup, until 1979, and had remained the country's symbolic leader until 2011 when the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya regime he established was overthrown in a civil war which consisted of an uprising aided by a NATO intervention. His 42-year leadership prior to the uprising made him the fourth longest-serving non-royal leader since 1900, as well as the longest-serving Arab leader. He variously styled himself as "the Brother Leader" and "Guide of the Revolution"; in 2008 a meeting of traditional African rulers bestowed on him the title "King of Kings". Biography Born near Sirte, Italian Libya to a poor Bedouin family, Gaddafi became an Arab nationalist while at school in Sabha, later enrolling in the Royal Military Academy, Benghazi. Within the military, he founded a revolutionary group which deposed the Western-backed Senussi monarchy of Idris in a 1969 coup. After seizing power, he abolished the Libyan Constitution of 1951. He established laws based on the political ideology he had formulated, called the Third International Theory and published in The Green Book. After establishing the jamahiriya ("state of the masses") system in 1977, he officially stepped down from power in 1979 and has since then held a largely symbolic role within the country's governance. Rising oil prices and extraction in Libya led to increasing revenues. By exporting as much oil per capita as Saudi Arabia and through various welfare programs, Libya achieved the highest living standards in Africa, though not as high as similarly oil-rich Gulf countries. Early during his regime, Gaddafi and his relatives took over much of the economy. Gaddafi started several wars and acquired chemical weapons. The United Nations called Libya under Gaddafi a pariah state. During the Cold War, Gaddafi developed strong ties to the Soviet Union and cultivated alliances with Idi Amin of Uganda (with Libya supporting Uganda during their war with Tanzania) and Hafez al-Assad of Syria during this time period, though his relations with Amin would sour later on. In 1980, Gaddafi and Assad proposed a political union, with Libya promising to pay off Syria's £1 billion debt to the Soviet Union; although pressures led Assad to pull out, they remained allies. He also sided with Palestine in the ongoing conflict between Palestine and Israel and forged an alliance with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, but this alliance later collapsed when Gaddafi came to believe that Arafat was "too moderate" towards Israel, preferring more violent action. In the 1980s, the Reagan Administration implemented sanctions against Gaddafi. Several other countries would follow suit. Gaddafi also faced growing opposition within his own borders as well during this time period, mostly from militant Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. In response, security forces raided mosques believed to be centres of counter-revolutionary preaching. In October 1993, elements of the increasingly marginalized army initiated a failed coup in Misrata, while in September 1995, Islamists launched an insurgency in Benghazi, and in July 1996 an anti-Gaddafist football riot broke out in Tripoli. The Revolutionary Committees experienced a resurgence to combat these Islamists. When Al-Qaeda perpetrated the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, Gaddafi publicly condemned their actions and attempted to rebuild relations with the United States. However, with the beginning of the War on Terror and the US' subsequent invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq, Gaddafi rescinded his attempts to reconcile with the US, believing that this was the wrong way to handle the situation. His stance on this only got stronger as the wars dragged on through the years. Six days after the capture of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003 by United States troops, Gaddafi renounced Tripoli's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs and welcomed international inspections to verify that he would follow through on the commitment. A leading advocate for a United States of Africa, he served as Chairperson of the African Union (AU) from February 2nd, 2009 to January 31st, 2010. In February 2011, following revolutions in neighboring Egypt and Tunisia, protests against Gaddafi's rule began. These escalated into an uprising that spread across the country, with the forces opposing Gaddafi establishing a government based in Benghazi named the National Transitional Council (NTC). Gaddafi and his sons responded with violence and brutality with his forces using knives and heavy weapons against unarmed protesters, mass rapes were also committed by them. They were also about to commit a genocide in Benghazi which caused NATO to intervene. This led to the 2011 Libyan Civil War, which included a military intervention by a NATO-led coalition to enforce a UN Security Council Resolution 1973 calling for a no-fly zone and protection of civilians in Libya. The assets of Gaddafi and his family were frozen, and both Interpol and the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on June 27th for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, and his brother-in-law Abdullah al-Senussi, concerning crimes against humanity. In July 2011, a speech delivered in the town of Sabha, located about 800 kilometers south of Tripoli, claimed for Islam, Andalusia, the Canary Islands, Sicily and other smaller islands of the Mediterranean because they were once Arab lands that deserve be released To do this, the Libyan tyrant said he had a "suicide army" ready to immolate himself in Europe in revenge for NATO's military alliance against his regime. Gaddafi and his forces lost the Battle of Tripoli in August, and on September 16th, 2011 the NTC took Libya's seat at the UN, replacing Gaddafi. He retained control over parts of Libya, most notably the city of Sirte, to which it was presumed that he had fled. Although Gaddafi's forces initially held out against the NTC's advances, Gaddafi was captured alive as Sirte fell to the rebel forces on Thursday the October 20th, 2011. He was brutally beaten and sodomized before finally being killed with a gunshot to the head. His death was filmed and shown on news programs. Since his death, Libya's central government has effectively collapsed and civil war has continued to rage in Libya as various factions fight against each other to gain control of the country. Gallery Videos Evolution Of Evil E10 Colonel Gaddafi Full Documentary Muammar al-Qaddafi - Dictator Mini Bio BIO Trivia *He shares the same fate as former Liberian dictator Samuel Doe since they were both Africans and led a coup and died before being tortured on camera. *He was good friends with Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak *Sacha Baron Cohen's alter-ego General Aladeen from the 2012 film The Dictator is a parody of him. *There are over 100 spelling variations of Gaddafi's name. Among these are "Muammar Qaddafi", "Mu'Ammar el-Qathafi", "Mo'ammar Gadhafi", "Muammar al-Qaddafi", "Muhammar Gheddafi", "Moammar Kazzafi", "Muammar al-Khaddafi", "Mu'ammar al-Qadhdhafi", "Moamar aI-Kadafi", and "Moammar Khadaffy", among others. 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